Jacque Fresco: We Are Responsible Both For the Planet and For Our Relationship With Each Other

We owe so much to so many nations. The separation of nations is dangerous, wrong, and the failure of nations to work together. That's what war is. War is a supreme failure of bridging the difference between nations. There will be no military in the future. There will be people who learn. See, soldiers are killing machines. You teach them to kill and the other nations teaches its soldiers to kill.  What I would do is teach soldiers, send them back to school free of charge to learn to become problem solvers. "How do you bridge the difference between Saudi Arabia and this country?" "How do you bridge the difference between Venezuela and this country?" That's what's needed. Science applied to government.  So far, we have opinions from politicians that know nothing about ecology, safety, engineering, increasing the agricultural yield. They're totally incapable. The children of the future will look back and say, "Couldn't you see that the money system had people paid off? Couldn't you see what is obvious to you?" You would say, '"No, we were brought up that way. We didn't know the difference." Kids will not understand that in the future.  

If you think we can’t change the world, it just means you're not one of those that will.

In order to design a future of positive change, we must first become expert at changing our minds. 

We live in a world where our social system is old, our language is old, the way we acquire goods and services is outdated, our cities are detrimental to our health, chaotic and a tremendous waste of resource, and most of all our politics and values no longer serve us.

So, "normal" is really what society dictates as normal and if we're born in that world, we would see that as normal. But if you think about it for a second, is it really? 

What kind of competition is there in your body? Suppose your brain said ' I'm the most important organ, and the liver said 'I am, and I want to go in a free enterprise-system.'  You would rot away in a month, if every organ of your body, were out for itself.

It is also shameful when billions are spent on space projects for terra-forming uninhabited planets to make them habitable while our own planet is neglected, and the land, sea, and air are polluted. 

Population control is dependent upon education. We feel, an educated population needs no control. 

Conditions of misery, suffering, war, and war profiteering were the incentive and inspiration for my work. I was also motivated by the seeming incompetence of governments, the academic world, and a lack of solutions from scientists. Many fail as generalists because of their over-specialization on limited aspects of social problems. Scientists, politicians, and academicians see problems from inside the system they’re in, which is what’s responsible for the problems in the first place. I am disappointed with those who worry about terra-forming other planets while our own is still full of war, poverty, hunger, and environmental neglect. 

The future is our responsibility, but change will not take place until the majority lose confidence in their dictator’s and elected officials’ ability to solve problems. It will likely take an economic catastrophe resulting in enormous human suffering to bring about true social change. 

You cannot approach people who think differently with reason and logic if they don't know what that means.  First, you have to appeal to their values to start with.  If you attack them, you lose them. 

You know that you can't go out there and change the world tomorrow morning. It just takes time, and the realization of that does not produce frustration. What produces frustration, is when you expect the world to join with your cause it's so reasonable. It is not reasonable to unreasonable people.

Democracy is a con game. It’s a word invented to placate people to make them accept a given institution. All institutions sing, ‘We are free.’ The minute you hear ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, watch out… because in a truly free nation, no one has to tell you you’re free.  

If you took the profit out of war, there would be no war. What the hell do you think war is? You think we go to another country to bring democracy? We go there 'cause there's oil, resources or something we need.

All people are brought up by cultures and every culture says “You live in the greatest country in the world,” “I'm American and proud of it',” “I'm Canadian, I'm proud of it.” That separates people. 

We're running into a lot of new problems today because of what we emphasize in this culture. The word 'success' to the average person means earning a lot of money and having a home, two cars, children in college. Success to me is entirely different to what success is to the average person. Success is being a successful human being in terms of pursuing what you believe in. If you believe in making paintings, writing poetry, writing music. If this is what you really want, you're successful to yourself. But to be successful to your culture means to sell yourself short of what you really want. 

Earth is abundant with plentiful resources. Our practice of rationing resources through monetary control is no longer relevant and is counter-productive to our survival.  

Armies are created to protect an established system, not people. In the future, an educated humanity will not stand for war.

Self-centeredness will bring on the destruction of our world. National pride separates people. All people need the same thing. When you really get down to it, you'll find that all people need good food, clean water, clean air, and a decent environment, meaning education as to how to relate to one another and to avoid conflict, how to accept the differences where different people draw different conclusions.

Everything that you've learned: 'Make a lot of money, have a nice house'. But they never teach you at school how to relate, how to communicate with others, how to share values with others. ...They teach you how to make a living. You become an optometrist, he becomes a physicist, she becomes a structural engineer, he's an architect. In the future, none of that. Everybody is trained to be a generalist, so they understand different cultures, different values, how we get to be the way we are. So no one can ever use you for war or killing anybody or hurting anybody 

In our search for more, we have blinded ourselves to our personal responsibility for challenging these absurdities. A resource-based society considers us all equal shareholders of Earth. We are responsible both for the planet and for our relationship with each other. 

To be human is to care for your fellow human beings and protecting the environment. 

We pledge allegiance to the Environment and All the world's people. World Unification, working towards the common good for ALL human beings, with no-one being subservient to anyone else. Without any kind of social stratification whether it be technical elitism, or any other kind of elitism eradicated from the face of the Earth. The State does nothing in a Resource based economy...because there is NO State! The System we advocate is not perfect, it's just a lot better. 

The only hope for developing a new civilization is to accept responsibility for improving our lives through knowledge, understanding, and a deeper comprehension of humanity’s relationship to natural processes of evolution. Our future is determined by effort we put forth to achieve this transition.

— Jacque Fresco